Contemporary art trends and news from Asia and beyond

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Art Radar Asia News conducts original research and scans global news sources to bring you selected topical stories about the taste-changing, news-making and the up and coming in Asian contemporary art.

The first iteration of Empire’s Borders, Chen’s critical response to the convoluted systems implemented as a result of Cold War policies, was featured in the Taiwanese Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. In this commissioned work, Chen Chieh-jen examines the history of Taiwan within a globalisation context.

The show, which runs from 2 October to 20 November this year, showcases a three-channel film installation including an autobiography of the artist’s father, a member of the Anti-Communist National Salvation Army (NSA), a list of NSA soldiers killed during the China offensive, an empty photo album and an old army uniform. Dr. Marko Daniel with Yu-ling Chou as assistant curated the show.

As profiled in the Taiwanese exhibition information on e-flux, “Chen Chieh-jen was born in 1960 in Taoyuan, Taiwan, and graduated from a vocational high school for the arts. He currently lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan. Chen created a series of photographic and video projects that re-imagine, re-write and re-connect his experience of living in a marginalised region and the intrinsic spirit of Taiwanese society, as well as propose possible ways of subverting dominant neoliberal logic.”

On Taiwanese-UK art blog +8 the artist’s career highlights are described: “He represented Taipei in the Venice Biennale in 2009, has been selected for Artes Mundi 2010, was included in the curated shows at the 1999 and 2005 Venice Biennales, the Liverpool Biennial 2006 and is showing in the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial in 2009-10. He has had solo exhibitions at the Asia Society, New York, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía 2008. In 2000, he was awarded the Special Prize at the Gwangju Biennale in Korea and in 2009 he was awarded Taiwan’s prestigious National Award for Arts for outstanding cultural achievement.”

‘Soup Over Bethlehem’ (2006) by Larissa Sansour, depicts an ordinary Palestinian family, Sansour’s own, around a dinner table on a rooftop overlooking the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

In this entrancing 9 minute (save it for the weekend) video on the Saatchi site, what starts as a culinary discussion about the national dish mloukhieh being served from a soup bowl soon evolves into a personal and engaging conversation about politics.

Larissa Sansour Soup over Bethlehem

The handheld cameras and the intimate sounds of cutlery against china help the viewer gain an alternative more direct experience of Palestinian issues slicing right through the Palestine blindness induced by the usual slick but tired TV footage.

The Arabic spoken around the dinner table is interrupted by English, and family members hold a variety of international passports, jobs and academic degrees. The diasporic traits present in every Palestinian family history lend a global quality to life even under the restraints of occupation.

In turn, the mloukhieh in the soup bowl represents the shared national heritage and the meal itself becomes a gastronomic anchoring of a Palestinian identity in eternal flux.

About Larissa Sansour

Larissa Sansour was born in 1973 in Jerusalem, studied Fine Art in Copenhagen, London and New York, and earned her MA from New York University.

Sansour’s work has been exhibited worldwide in galleries, museums and film festivals, including Tate Modern, London and the Arken Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. Her work was shown in last year’s Third Guangzhou Triennial in China, the Contemporary Art Biennale in Nîmes, France and the Busan Biennale in South Korea. Her latest film “A Space Exodus” was nominated for the Muhr Awards for short film at the Dubai International Film Festival. Her work will feature in the 11th International Istanbul Biennial in September 2009.

Art-Report, a German art website, has published a list that ranks the top 30 living contemporary video artists globally. By video artist, it refers to artists whose works are based on video and film as their preferred medium.

Although Asian artists are still in the minority, four artists – Yoko Ono, Paul Chan, Kutlug Ataman and Yang Fudong – are included in the rankings. Find below links and video clips for the three artists who have East Asian roots.

Ranked 3rd place is Yoko Ono. The Japanese avant-garde artist is dedicated to the formulation of conceptual and performance art. One of her representative performances is Cut Piece, in which Yoko Ono asked members of the audience to cut away her clothing piece by piece until she was almost naked.

On 6 June 2009, her achievements were once again recognized as she received a Venice Biennale Accolade –the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

At the 16th rank finds Paul Chan’s name. Paul Chan is Hong Kong-born but New York-based artist. Chan defines himself with a dual identity as an artist and activist. His works are characterized by the amalgamation of political, age-old, cutting-edge, religious and erotic elements.

Light and Drawings is Chan’s first major museum presentation in Europe in Stedelijk Museum. According to AbsoluteArts, Chan intended to make a group of works that delivers a physical experience and simultaneously provides a commentary on a world on the edge of disintegration. With one exception, the Lights are projected from the ceiling onto the floor, or partly on the floor and wall. The works are structured as a cycle of day and night, sunrise to sunset.

The last Asian video artist in the list- Yang Fudong- stands at the 26th place. Carnegie International describes this Chinese artist’s films as psychologically dense, visually beautiful meditations on the philosophical questions of existence as they are played out in the exterior world and the interior lives of his subjects.

Below is a link to an article about his best-known work -“Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest”. The work depicts the journey of seven poets and artists as they move through various phases of experience in their quest to transcend their earthly lives.